PARADIGM OF IDEAS

Motivation

“We Live in a society where our choice of clothing is made by the judgement others”

Remember when we were growing up we always used to talk on and on about how we wanted to become a Doctor,Army Officer or the ambitions of a few even exceeded reality where they would revel about the prospect of becoming very rich and just earning money. Well.even though that was pre pubescence, it is quite surprising that even today we aspire to achieve similar things. the main question is why? The answer lies in the way we are formed overtime. but is it really worth to compromise your children’s lifestyles just to make sure the neighbors don’t question your ways?

We often tend to judge ourselves on the opinions of others

The roots of this cause trace back to our cultural origins, we live in a society blended with the viral epidemic of fundamentalism. if we begin to discuss examples, it would take hours to think of even the most common ones. lets for one tae the story of a common Pakistan woman. what are her original teachings? Dress well, Work on Fairness and also specializing in becoming the perfect house wives. the cause for this goes deeper than the fundamental learning. the social learning also plays a role. woman with such mentality grow up in societies saturated with”RISHTA” aunties and obnoxious mothers who make it their life dream to find the perfect husband for them. hence, in the conservative section of our society which accounts for over 95% of the population can only aspire to be good house wives. if we are exemplifying, lets not forget the men who are under peer pressure from day one to commend good purchasing power as well as good respect in the society.

The preceding examples lead to even worse paradigms, men in society fail to live up to their potential or otherwise even chase their dreams for a change. to simplify such terms, we can take the example of Farhan, an acquaintance fond of painting, in fact incredibly passionate about it. his passion lead to a direct increase in his talent and his workshops showed that he had real potential. but at the age of 27, the bomb of being a perfect citizen drop right on his shoulders. Marriage. to conclude, his marriage as well as the responsibility of taking care of a woman made it impossible for him to even buy a minute to spare for his passion.

A contrast of the difference The Lifestyle Contrast: A village near Liyari : Karachi and the High Way system near Sea Veiw : Karachi

The scenarios is same or women, but there reasons would make a feminist jump in his own grave. it is a lot impossible for a woman to pursue her dreams. her parents expect nothing less than a good husband for their daughters. even the thought of a girl, for example trying to become a model in Lahore would make the Father’s cardiac veins tingle.

We live in a society where a boy can’t even dream of chasing his passion, or even of thinking about taking it as a hobby. although it is different for some parents, here we are talking about the 5%. the percentage of upper class. they have almost a different style. it is almost as if you enter their household you feel like you have entered an apartment in the Hampton’s. there children drive six figure cars, hangout out in the best of hotels and are pampered with a high influx of Servants.

Hence, the problem boils down to the conflicting natures of the 5 Percent and the 95 Percent living in the same society. however, the nature of conservatism is vanishing fast. people are adopting to secular lifestyles more and more. Hence, it is the inevitable future that the number Five Percent will increase in the future. yet, this can’t be credited to be a good thing due to the fact that this viral outspread of the upper class will only make the poor poorer. because eventually, lets face it, none of us care about the poor.we may blame the bureaucrats however we are to blame because of our lack of concern to the cause.

Today when world has progressed so much, we as a society are still stuck with the old traditions and stereotypes.Issues like gender bias and honor killing have always been the highlights of our news papers.Gender bias is not only creating problems for ; its also affecting the growth of our society.

Men and women should have equal rights in every society. None of the gender is inferior or superior. But unfortunately in our society females are the one who can not contribute for the welfare of the society and who are considered inferior than men. Even in the job market men are preferred over women. We live in a male dominating society and certain stereotypes have become a part of our culture now.

Stereotype is defined as “ideas held about members of particular groups, based solely on membership in that group.” Females have been the most discriminated group in our society through out the history. They are always stereotyped as weak,helpless,home makers, who only do the house chores and take care of their children. Who always need a man to save them and help them in difficult situations. But this is totally wrong. Women who can get education equal to men can equally work with men and contribute in the society.These wrong stereotypes eliminate opportunities for women in the society. They are always stereotyped as the one who gossip and who don’t have facts while talking to others. While men are always considered to be a reliable source of information and they have more convincing power than women. These stereotypes get stronger when different institutions such as schools, media and family members agree upon them. Through the validation of these institutes, discrimination amongst the gender arises.

The discrimination through stereotypes about women start from the childhood. Firstly when boys are sent to English medium schools to make a better career and girls are sent to Urdu medium schools with the thinking that they don’t need to study much as they will be married in early age. All they will have to do is house chores and up-bringing of their children. Secondly fairytales change the mind of young generation to a large extent. If we talk about fairy tales each story has a helpless, innocent girl where as males are shown as brave and saviors. Mostly females are the ones who play negative and evil roles in the story. This affect the mindset of young children and throughout their life they believe that females are the one who always need help from men.

The image of women is always stereotyped as childish, helpless,sensitive,irrational,emotional and most important that they do not have interest in making their career. this is a wrong concept, females want to make their career; only the thing that stops them doing so is lack of opportunities. These stereotypes occur because of the thinking of the society which is usually against women. Sons can marry with their own choice but daughters are killed in the name of honor ,if they try to tell their choice, this is due to discrimination among the genders and stereotype that women can not make a right decision.

When these institutations validate stereotypes against women the thinking of society never changes ,so each institution should play an important role in eliminating this discrimination against women and society should change its thinking.Women should be given equal rights as of men. Media can play an important role in changing the thinking of the society by showing women as role models and by highlighting their strengths and capabilities.This will change our thinking and eventually these stereotypes will eliminate from our society.

There should me more events like “zero discrimination day” to protect the rights of female and maintain equality in our society.We need to change our thinking for the welfare of our society. Eliminating these stereotypes from our society will help us to generate a healthy lifestyle.